Back to Basics
posted by Glen Stidolph in Outsourcing |
I’ve voiced my opinion on this blog a couple of times now about the relative immaturity of China’s manufacturing industry, and I didn’t want to be seen to be ‘China Bashing’ however with the recent massive product recall of approx 18 MILLION toys by the worlds largest toy maker, Mattel, I’m compelled to revisit this subject.
We are getting almost daily reports now of Chinese products being recalled for health or quality reasons, and my take on the situation is this:
1. Due to the media attention that has been drawn to the recent ‘problems’ caused by Chinese imports, there is a ‘heightened’ state of alert with consumers closely examining where their purchases were made, resulting in outsourcing companies increasing their QA/QC procedures aware of the catastrophic consequences should ‘their’ products be found to be faulty at best, and hazardous at worst.
2. Particularly in the manufacturing sector, Companies outsourcing to the most low cost labour destinations such as China have been guilty of taking their eye off the ball, or even worse, ‘closing one eye’ in search of lower costs and higher margins. I will be ‘kind’ and only presume that companies such as Mattel have been so complacent with outsourcing what they may consider as the most simple of tasks such as painting toys, that they have not recognised the fact that China’s local health and Safety standards are very immature and that they didn’t impose their own safety standards which would of course have been imposed if they had manufactured the toys in the US or Europe.
The lesson to be learned is that even the most basic processes affect the relationship you have with your customer. It might be assumed that painting toys is a pretty simple process, but recent recalls have shown how it can go disastrously wrong.
Companies MUST take their customers into consideration, and MUST take a more holistic view of their outsource destination, outsourcing is not such a short sighted strategy as price, price, price and those who have chosen to ignore these facts would now seem to be learning how to outsource the hardway.
